For Tom Burns, the director of Perkins Observatory in Delaware County, the harbinger of spring
is seeing the constellation Leo the lion rising in the early evening in the southeastern sky.

When people say that March came in like a lion, as it did this year, it is an obvious reference
to Leo, Burns said,

In mythology, Leo was a real lion who was the pet of Hera. She was the queen of the gods and the
wife of Zeus, the king of the gods.

Leo lived in a cave near the Greek city Nemea and had the bad habit of snacking on the local
residents, Burns said.

The Nemeans could do nothing about it because Leo’s hide was so tough that their spears and
arrows bounced off him. So they asked Hercules, a very large, strong and courageous mythological
character, for help in dispatching Leo. Hercules was the illegitimate son of Zeus and a mortal
woman and, therefore, was half god and half human.

Hera hated Hercules because he was the result of her husband’s relationship with another woman.
She plagued Hercules throughout time. For instance, when Hercules was only an infant, Hera sent two
huge serpents to kill him, but Hercules killed them both with his pudgy little hands, Burns said.
Even as a baby, he was very strong.

When Hercules eventually attempted to kill Leo, he found that his arrows and spears also bounced
off the beast. “And so he had to kill the lion the old-fashioned way, by grabbing it around the
neck and choking him to death; and, therefore, the Nemeans were saved,” Burns said.

Hercules killed several of Hera’s pets over the years, and she considered him a bitter enemy,
Burns said.

After he killed Leo, Hercules skinned the great lion and wore its hide over his shoulders as a
coat of armor with the lion’s great head over his own, making him appear even more fearsome.

It is no coincidence that the constellation Hercules rises in the eastern sky soon after Leo. By
midnight, they are both high in the southern sky and then set in the southwest as the morning
dawns.

Burns told me he is not thrilled when spring arrives. “I don’t mind nature’s cycles, but
daylight saving time is a bit too much for me because it tacks on extra daylight on the end of the
day, and I can’t see the stars,” he said.

“In high summer, for a program (of star gazing) at Perkins, you have to start so late, it’s 11
p.m. before it’s dark enough to observe the stars,” he said.

“In July, we don’t even do any nighttime programs because there is no nighttime then.”